What to Expect at CES 2014

With the holidays behind us, we now look forward to every technophile's favorite week of gadget goodness—the Consumer Electronics Show. PopMech will be traveling to Las Vegas to see what technology the upcoming year has to offer. Here are a few rumors, trends, and tech we think will be on the show floor.

Wearable Tech

Wearable Tech

This one may not come as a surprise as wearable tech—most notably Google Glass; smartwatches such as Pebble, Qualcomm’s Toq, or Samsung’s Galaxy Gear; and fit-conscious gadgets like the FitBit wristband—have slowly trickled into the market. But at this year’s CES, we expect that small trickle to become a deluge of devices.

For one, Google, Apple, and Microsoft, the three big mobile players, have yet to unveil their own smartwatch designs. Although that will likely change soon since Apple recently filed a patent for producing curved interfaces. Also some rumors say Sony’s next smartwatch could possibly make an appearance at CES this year. The biggest hurdle with smartwatches so far as been their inability to let users take full advantage of a smartphone on their wrist. There’s a lot of room for improvement in this space, and no doubt CES 2014 might showcase some forward-thinking solutions.

The quantified self movement is only just gaining momentum, meaning we’ll see more health-focused wearable technology. The success of the Fitbit Force, Jawbone’s UP, Nike, and other wristbands have established that there’s money to be made. New tech might take these gadgets beyond simple pedometer tracking and push for even more smartphone integration beyond their respective apps.

Leaving wrists and moving on to headwear, there's really only one device that’s turned heads so far: Google Glass, which has been on the market for a couple years. This year, at CES, we'll probably see smaller companies try to take on the search-engine giant. Sony, Microsoft, and Apple already have submitted patents and other (cheaper) contenders include Vuzix, Recon, and Oakley.

PC Plus and Convertible PCs

PC Plus and Convertible PCs

Makers will definitely be shaking up their PC models by offering two operating systems in one. Known as PC Plus, such upcoming PCs will be able to almost instantly transition between Android and Windows 8.1. This isn’t exactly a new innovation as ASUS attempted the feat with the Transformers Book Trio and apps like Bluestacks let users run Android on their laptops. But this is something a little different as PC Plus devices would most likely dual-boot both operating system, allowing quick back-and-forth transition between them.

This could be seen as a blessing or a curse for Microsoft. On one hand, they buy themselves some time by integrating Android’s much more impressive app selection onto their devices. However, developers might think that PC Plus means if you develop for Android you’ll reach Windows users too, further stymying development for Windows. We will most likely get a better sense of Microsoft’s thinking behind this tech merger in Las Vegas.

In terms of form factor, we may see more tweaks and renditions of the all-in-one laptop experience. Lenovo will most likely showcase a bevy of new products, and LG has already announced the next generation of its Tab-Book. Fueled in part by Windows 8’s tablet-friendly design, it seems manufacturers will continue to fudge the line between tablet and PC. In previous years, OEMs developed radical new laptop PC designs and gauged consumer reaction. Now, we expect to see more well-informed changes to these companies' now-established product lines.